Alison Reynolds 01 - Edge Of Evil (v5.0)

by J. A. Jance

  It turned out to be a very long day. By the time Ali got home at three in the afternoon, she was dead tired. She lay down on the bed, planning to put her feet up for a few minutes. She awakened to a ringing telephone two hours later. In order to answer the phone Ali had to reach across Samantha, who was cuddled up next to her.

  “I’m headed up to Flag to see your father and to give Chris a break,” Edie said. “Want to ride along?”

  Ali laughed. “Obviously you’re a whole lot tougher than I am,” she said. “My feet are killing me. I came home, dropped onto the bed, and fell sound asleep.”

  “I’m used to it,” Edie told her. “That makes all the difference.”

  “Do you need me to ride along?” Ali asked. “I’ll come with you if you want me to.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself back and forth to Flagstaff,” Edie told her. “I’ve been doing it for years. Besides, you sound beat. You should probably stay home.”

  Feeling guilty, Ali allowed herself to be convinced. Once off the phone, she forced herself off the bed and into the shower. Only then, did she go near her computer:

  Today has been a day for going back to my roots and for remembering any number of things that I didn’t know I’d forgotten. There’s the light, fluffy texture of my mother’s award-winning sweet rolls and the aroma of bacon, eggs, and hash browns cooking on a hot grill. There’s the heady smell of coffee when the hot water first hits the grounds. There’s the feeling of relief when the last customer has finally walked out the door, the cash register has run off the day’s receipts, and the last bag of trash has been hauled out to the Dumpster.

  But the main thing I had forgotten, was just how hard the work of running a restaurant can be. Waiting tables in even a small-town diner is hard on your feet and on your back. It’s also hard on your spirit. Doing it again after all this time has given me a whole new appreciation of what my parents and their former partner, my aunt Evie, have done all their adult lives, keeping alive the restaurant my grandmother started more than fifty years ago.

  Working in the Sugarloaf today has also made me value anew the work done by countless people in the food service industry all over this country. They’re the men and women who every day, morning and evening, greet their customers cheerfully and courteously. In the process of serving whatever food has been ordered, they also serve up something else. Along with bacon and eggs and hash browns, they dish up human connections and spiritual sustenance.

  Being in the restaurant today was going back to my roots in another way, too. I was there as Bob and Edie Larson’s daughter and not as some distant member of the media elite. Sedona is a small town. People who came in today gave me a break when I was slow to deliver their food. They understood and forgave the fact that my waitressing skills are more than a little rusty. Somehow they all knew that my father’s been hurt, my mother needs help, and I was there to give it. I think my mother thought I’d consider the work beneath me. I know at least one of my customers thought so as well. But I’m comfortable being “daughter” at the moment. It suits me, and I’m glad I can be here to help.

  Posted: 5 P.M., by AliR

  With Samantha beside her on the couch, Ali began reading through the e-mailed comments that had come in since she had last checked.

  * * *

  Dear Ali,

  When I used to see you on the news, I always thought your life was perfect. Now I know it isn’t. Mine isn’t either. Take care.

  NoName

  * * *

  Dear Ms. Reynolds,

  I was five when my dad took off and left my mother with three kids to raise on her own. I remember her telling me, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” I never understood quite what that meant back then, but I do now. And she was right. We got along just fine. You’ll be fine, too. By the way, we have the same name except I have two Ls and you only have one.

  Allison

  * * *

  Dear Mrs. Reynolds,

  I married my husband in the Temple, for now and all eternity. He has a girlfriend, too. I cry myself to sleep every night. I don’t know what I did to cause it, but I won’t give him a divorce, not ever. And you shouldn’t either. What God has put together, let no man put asunder.

  Rhonda

  * * *

  It’s not just men. My wife had an affair with her professor. When she told me about it, she was laughing like she thought it was funny. I got so mad I put my fist through the wall. She called the cops and told them I was going to hit her. I wasn’t, but she filed a restraining order against me. Now she has the house, and I can’t even see my kids. I’m back home and living with my parents.

  Alan

  Ali paused a long time over that one. Was it possible that Jasmine Wright was married and this was a message from her husband? No, Ali decided, finally. That would have been too much of a coincidence, but it was interesting to have Alan’s point of view and to realize that male victims of infidelity suffered just as much as their female counterparts did. The big difference for men was that they had fewer places to go to unload their troubles. They were expected to tough it out no matter what.

  He gets to unload here, Ali thought, and shipped Alan’s comment to The Forum.

  * * *

  Dear AliR,

  Once you’re unfortunate enough to step into the world of ALS you’ll find it’s a very small one. It’s like you get on a road that only runs in one direction. When you start out, you meet others who are following the same path. You ask them for directions and suggestions, so you’ll know what to expect along the way. Some people travel the road faster than others, so someone who started out late may leapfrog ahead of someone who was diagnosed earlier.

  You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but my sister, Lisa Kingsley, knew your friend Reenie. They met in an ALS chat room. At the time Reenie’s diagnosis hadn’t been confirmed, but she was looking for options. She wanted to know about the treatment Lisa was taking. It was very expensive, but I believe it helped Lisa for a while and I think she was encouraging Reenie to try it.

  Lisa is gone now. I know you’re grieving over your lost friend, but I can’t help but think that perhaps Reenie made the right choice—for her, anyway. Living with ALS is hell. So is dying of it.

  You and Reenie’s family have all my best wishes and sympathy.

  Louise Malkin

  Lubbock, Texas

  Ali read through that one several times, blinking tears from her eyes as she read. Finally, rather than posting it, she simply wrote back.

  * * *

  Dear Louise,

  Thanks for being in touch, and thanks for your kind wishes. And please accept my condolences on the loss of your sister.

  I’m curious about the kind of treatment Lisa was receiving and where. Can you tell me anything about it? I asked Reenie’s husband but he wasn’t able to tell me much other than he thought it was based somewhere in Mexico.

  Regards,

  Ali Reynolds

  The next e-mail had no salutation and no subject line.

  You are a bitch. Why would anyone want to hear what you think about anything? You want other women to be just like you and the one who threw her poor husband’s remotes into the water. You must think that was a cute trick even though her husband probably had to work a long time to earn that equipment and she wrecked it just like that. I wouldn’t let my two-year-old get away with that let alone my wife.

  How dare you print such crap? How many women, with good, caring husbands, read your stupid blog and decide it’s time to take their children and run? If my wife ever did that, I would beat her within an inch of her life.

  Speaking of my wife. I know she has been visiting your site and you are putting bad ideas in her head. If she tries to leave me, I swear I’ll come looking for you. Someone needs to pull the plug on you just like they did on your friend.

  Watching

  A chill passed over Ali’s body as she read the words, and the fear sh
e felt must have communicated itself to Samantha. The cat stopped purring abruptly, raised her mangled head, and peered warily around the room.

  Ali read through the message again. This wasn’t the first time she had received a written threat. You couldn’t be in the news business in this day and age without people sending threats filled with vulgar language and simmering hatred.

  For years Ali had driven home late at night, traversing LA’s freeways at a time of day when there were plenty of nutcases on the road. She had taken the course work necessary to be given a license to carry, and she had her own slick little Glock 26 stowed in the bottom of her bright pink Coach handbag. It was there primarily because, at the time she and Chris were loading the Cayenne for the trip to Sedona, she hadn’t taken the time to sort out the contents of her purse. Right now, though, she was glad it was there, and she was grateful that she’d spent time at a shooting range learning how to use it.

  Ali glanced around the room and wondered about the thickness of the walls in Aunt Evie’s manufactured home. Would they stop a bullet? she wondered. And what about the hollow core metal door? It had once seemed substantial enough, but now it looked lightweight and vulnerable. Would it be strong enough to withstand the charge of someone trying to push his way into the house?

  It was one thing to receive that kind of threat when you were housed in a television station with security guards stationed all around and with cement bollards blocking the sidewalk entrances. And you didn’t worry that much when you lived behind the tall electronically controlled gates of Paul Grayson’s wall-enclosed mansion on Robert Lane, either. But when you and your son were staying alone in a mobile home parked at the very edge of town, high on an Arizona mountainside…

  Ali understood that some of the people issuing those threats were nothing more than harmless kooks venting their spleens in a media world destined to ignore them. But others were definitely dangerous. Ali hadn’t the slightest doubt that Watching was one of the dangerous ones.

  Her next thought was to delete Watching’s message and simply let it go, but after a moment of consideration, she didn’t do that, either. Somewhere in the blogosphere was a defenseless woman with a two-year-old baby who was living with a very dangerous man—a man who was busily tracking the websites she visited and the messages she sent and received in the presumed privacy of her personal computer.

  Through the years Ali had done numerous special appearances for YWCA events and for organizations dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence. As a result she had learned far more about the subject than she wanted to. Ali knew, for example, that the most dangerous time for abuse victims is just before or just after they make the decision to leave. That’s the moment when, valid protection orders be damned, women are most likely to be slaughtered by their abusive mates.

  And the mother of that two-year-old, deep in the misery of her awful marriage and desperately weighing her options, would have no clue that her husband knew exactly what she was doing, down to the last betraying keystroke.

  That left Ali no real choice. She had no idea what the woman’s name was or where she lived. Ali had no way of knowing if the woman in question was one of the blog correspondents whose words she had posted on the Web. Even though Ali knew the woman’s e-mail address, writing to her directly would be far too risky. If Watching found something from Ali in his wife’s incoming mail, he’d probably go berserk. On the other hand, if she posted Watching’s e-mail to The Forum, there was a chance that perhaps the woman would read it and recognize it for what it was—a direct threat to her and to her child.

  Ali shipped Watching’s e-mail to The Forum and posted her own accompanying comment:

  On the day we take our wedding vows, most of us naively assume that our marriage really will last forever. We truly believe that whatever traps and problems that befall other couples and lead them to divorce courts won’t happen to us. Because we’re different. Because we REALLY love each other. Sometime later reality sets in and things go wrong. And what we thought didn’t matter to us—staying out late with the guys, keeping in touch with old flames, becoming surly and controlling—turns out to matter a great deal.

  And once things do go wrong, bad marriages can be divided into two subcategories—survivable and deadly. Survivable bad marriages are where you come out with your kids, maybe some child support, and—hopefully—a shred of self-respect. The deadly ones are just exactly that—deadly. That’s because one of the partners isn’t prepared to let the other one go. One of these twisted individuals would rather see his (and yes, most of the people in this category are male) mate dead than see her living happily ever after with some other person.

  That kind of possessiveness exists in a world where everything is “my way or the highway.” Men like that enforce their iron will with ugly words and iron fists or else with knives or loaded weapons.

  There are places where women in marriages like that can turn for help. You can find them listed under social services in your local phone book or on the Internet or at your local library. If you suspect that your husband or partner is tracking your computer keystrokes (The way the guy in the previous post is doing!), use the telephone. If he checks your outgoing cell phone calls, use a pay phone. And then, leave. Don’t pack a bag. That might tell him in advance that you’re planning on going, because that’s the most dangerous time for you and your children. Once you make up your mind, he’ll do whatever he can to stop you—and I do mean the most appalling of whatevers!!!

  You’ll be a refugee—a displaced person. In order to start over, you’ll need documents. Stuff your important papers (children’s birth certificates and shot records, marriage license, driver’s license, social security cards, and divorce decrees) into your purse and then get the hell out. Trust me. Nothing you leave behind will be worth coming back for—NOTHING!! Go and don’t look back. It’ll be better for you and far better for your children.

  Posted 7:52 P.M. AliR

  Ali Reynolds had been reporting murder and mayhem for years, but always from a distance. Always from behind the camera with no personal involvement. Now, in a matter of days, that distance had dissolved. Suddenly she was drowning in other people’s lives, and not just Reenie’s suicide, either. The malevolence in Watching’s message left her almost paralyzed with fear—and not just for herself, for the man’s unsuspecting wife and child as well.

  Within minutes, she heard the familiar announcement, “You’ve got mail.” There were two new messages. The first one was harmless enough:

  * * *

  Dear Ali,

  I’m sorry for your loss. You were lucky to have Reenie for a friend, and she was lucky to have you. Please take care.

  barbaram

  The second one was almost as chilling as Watching’s had been:

  * * *

  Dear Ali,

  Your post made me so sad. It reminded me of my lost friend, only her husband killed her. She was trying to get a divorce and had a protection order and everything, but he busted down the front door and shot her in front of her two little kids before she could get away. He’s in prison now, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

  Louise in Omaha

  In Omaha, Ali thought. She had somehow envisioned that all the responses were coming from southern California and were a direct result of her having left TV news. That fact that someone from Omaha was reading her blog was surprising. And the message, such a striking counterpart to Watching’s threat, left Ali feeling cold, alone, and very much afraid.

  Chapter 11

  Some time much later, a car pulled up beside the house. Ali, having dozed off with the computer on her lap, was startled awake when a car door slammed. When she hurried over to the window and peered out through the blinds, she was relieved to see her father’s familiar red-and-white Bronco parked just behind her Cayenne. Chris was already jiggling the locked front door by the time she got there to open it.

  “Since Grandma’s there at the hospital visiting Gramps, I
decided to come home long enough to shower and change clothes,” Chris said. As soon as he stepped into the living room, Samantha leaped off the couch and disappeared behind it. “And who’s that?” he added.

  “Sam,” Ali answered. “Matt and Julie Bernard’s cat. She’ll be staying for a while.”

  “She?” Chris asked.

  “As in Samantha.”

  At first Ali had planned on telling Chris about Watching’s threatening e-mail, but now she decided against it.

  When he goes back to California, he’ll be studying for finals. Then in his last quarter of school, he’ll need to concentrate on his studies rather than worry about me.

  “What’s the word on Grandpa?” she asked, as he prowled through the refrigerator, settling at last on Edie’s leftover pot roast.

  “They’ll probably let him out tomorrow,” Chris answered. “Grandma’s not too happy about that. She thinks it’s way too soon. He’s going to be in a wheelchair—at least initially—and she has no idea how they’ll manage. I don’t either. Their house is tiny. The restaurant may be wheelchair accessible, but their house isn’t. I can help for tomorrow, but the day after that I’m going to need to head home and start studying for finals. I ran into a guy up in Flag who’s driving to LA on Friday. He offered me a ride, but that’s the day of Reenie’s funeral, so maybe I should stay on—”